Meadows School of the Arts

SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts will present its 25th annual “Meadows at the Meyerson” concert at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, 2018, in the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora Street in Dallas. The event will feature works by Barber and Mahler, performed by the critically acclaimed Meadows Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Paul Phillips. The event supports talented Meadows students through the Meadows Scholars Program.

The annual spring concert also honors a community leader. This year, the honoree is noted philanthropist and arts advocate Sarah Fullinwider Perot, and the event chair is Melissa Fetter. SMU President R. Gerald Turner and Algur H. Meadows Dean Sam Holland will provide remarks at the event.

Tickets to the Meadows at the Meyerson concert are $17 for students and SMU faculty and staff. A $10 discount is available for Meadows subscribers. For tickets, contact the Meadows box office at 214-768-2787 (214-SMU-ARTS).

The program will include Samuel Barber’s First Essay for Orchestra, op. 12, and Toccata Festiva, op. 36 ,for organ and orchestra. Award-winning organist Stefan Engels, Leah Young Fullinwider Centennial Chair in Music Performance at the Meadows School, will be guest soloist. The program will conclude with Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, a dynamic work incorporating sounds of nature, folk music, a funeral procession and a heroic, triumphal ending.

“Meadows at the Meyerson celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2018, and has continued to be a musical highlight of the year,” said Dean Holland. “It is an opportunity to showcase the skill and dedication of our gifted students and the critically acclaimed Meadows Symphony on a world-class stage, and to raise scholarship funds for our Meadows Scholars Program. Now in its tenth year, the Meadows Scholars Program’s ever-increasing impact over the past decade can be measured by rising test scores, artistry and diversity with each incoming class. We are also thrilled this year to honor Sarah Fullinwider Perot, who works tirelessly to give, lead and advocate for arts and culture in Dallas. We are proud to claim her as a Meadows alumna.”

Event honoree Sarah Fullinwider Perot graduated from SMU in 1983 with a B.A. in journalism and broadcast film, and is currently president of the Sarah & Ross Perot, Jr. Foundation, which focuses on education, basic human need and patriotic philanthropy. She serves on the SMU Board of Trustees, as well as the executive boards of the SMU Meadows School, Dedman College and Tower Center for Political Studies. Her service to the Dallas community includes fundraising efforts for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas Symphony and as chair of The Sweetheart Ball. She has been recognized with the TACA Silver Cup Award for her contributions to the arts in North Texas and was the recipient of the 2016 SMU Distinguished Alumni Award.

Meadows Theatre has set the stage for Tom Stoppard’s award-winning play inspired by the final scene of Hamlet – and told from the point of view of the two luckless characters who meet their fates offstage.

Described by The Guardian’s Michael Billington as “an astonishing balance between cross-talk comedy and poignant awareness of mortality,” Stoppard’s work focuses on Hamlet from the perspective of the title character’s childhood friends, who have been charged with spying on the prince by his uncle, King Claudius. Hamlet, Ophelia and other Shakespearean characters swirl in and out of the action as the increasingly bewildered courtiers proceed inexorably toward their doom.

First staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966, Stoppard’s absurdist tragicomedy won four 1968 Tony Awards, including Best Play. It received the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best play in 1968 and was named Outstanding Production by the Outer Critics’ Circle in 1969. Stoppard himself adapted and directed a film version in 1990, starring Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.

The show has a two-hour running time, with a 10-minute intermission at the end of Act I. Please remember that photography and recording of any kind are expressly forbidden at all Meadows School of the Arts performances.

Alice Kendrick, Marriott Family Endowed Professor of Advertising in Meadows School of the Arts, was recognized as 2017-18 Professor of the Year.

HOPE (Honoring Our Professors’ Excellence) Award recipients are named through RLSH student staff member nominations as professors who “have made a significant impact to our academic education both inside and outside of the classroom.”

The complete list of 2017-18 HOPE Award honorees:

Cox School of Business

Barry Bryan, Accounting

Jay Carson, Management and Organizations

Liliana Hickman-Riggs, Accounting +

Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

Stephanie Amsel, English (Discernment and Discourse)

Joan Arbery, English (Discernment and Discourse)

Sarah Bogard, World Languages and Literatures (Spanish)

Richard Bozorth, English

Teresa Brentegani, World Languages and Literatures (Italian)

Alejandro D’Brot, Biological Sciences

LeeAnn Derdeyn, English (Discernment and Discourse)

Jill DeTemple, Religious Studies

Kirsten Egerstrom, Philosophy

Xiao Hu, World Languages and Literatures (Chinese)

Bruce Levy, English (Discernment and Discourse) *

Leticia Trevino McDoniel, World Languages and Literatures (Spanish)

Daniel Moss, English

Michael Saliba, Economics

Ross Sloan, English (Discernment and Discourse)

Teresa Strecker, Biological Sciences

Thierry Tirado, World Languages and Literatures (French)

Brian Zoltowski, Chemistry *

Lyle School of Engineering

Elena Borzova, Mechanical Engineering

Frank Coyle, Computer Science and Engineering

Rachel Goodman, Engineering Management, Information and Systems

Yildirim Hürmüzlü, Mechanical Engineering

Andrew Quicksall, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Peter Raad, Mechanical Engineering

Meadows School of the Arts

Willie Baronet, Advertising

Sandra Duhé, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs

Alice Kendrick, Advertising (HOPE Professor of the Year) *

Troy Perkins, Film and Media Arts

Lauren Smart, Journalism

Perkins School of Theology

Tamara Lewis, History of Christianity

Stephen Long, Cary M. Maguire University Professor of Ethics

Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development

Kelyn Rola, Wellness +

+ Nominated by more than one student

* HOPE Distinguished Professor, indicating the faculty member has been nominated in five or more years

Journalist Emily Lawler has spent more than a year reporting on a decades-spanning sex-abuse scandal involving a Michigan State University sports-medicine specialist. On Thursday, March 1, 2018, she will visit SMU to discuss the story that has made global headlines and helped spark the #MeToo movement.

Lawler, capitol and business reporter with the MLive Media Group in Lansing, has written extensively about the sexual assault and child-pornography charges surrounding former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, including his trial and conviction. She continues to follow the story and its implications for journalism, political and public affairs, and public relations.

She will speak at 5:30 p.m. March 1 in 241 Umphrey Lee Center and will be available for questions and answers until 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The enchantress Alcina has conjured a magical island from the souls of her former lovers. There she lures unsuspecting men, only to turn them into wild animals and inanimate objects when she tires of them. When she traps the knight Ruggiero, his fiancée, Bradamante – who is herself a knight, disguised as her own brother – comes to the rescue.

The resulting tangle of romantic conflicts and deceptions, and the complexities of how human beings suffer in love, form the story of Georg Friedrich Händel’s 1735 masterpiece, Alcina.

Meadows Opera Theatre, directed by Hank Hammett and conducted by Paul Phillips, will present the Baroque opera as its Spring Term production. The show runs Feb. 8-11, 2018, in the Bob Hope Theatre. Ticket are $8 each for SMU students, faculty and staff.

Händel wrote the opera seria, which takes its setting and many of its characters from the epic poem Orlando furioso by Ludovico Arioso, for his debut season at the Theatre Royal in London’s Covent Garden. Dame Joan Sutherland performed the title role for the Dallas Opera in a November 1960 production by Franco Zeffirelli.

Meadows Opera Theatre will sing the performance in Italian with English projected titles.

An award-winning copywriter and creative director, Baldwin is the founder of Baldwin&, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based advertising agency that was named Small Agency of the Year twice in its first five years by AdAge and the American Association of Advertising Agencies. Baldwin and his work have been recognized by The One Show, the Cannes Festival, D&AD, the Clios, the Effies, the Andy Awards, the MPA Kelly Awards, Communication Arts and more. His work and writings have been featured in numerous publications and college textbooks on advertising.

The former chairman of The One Club in New York City, Baldwin is also cofounder and brandmaster of the Ponysaurus Brewing Co. in Durham, makers of “the beer beer would drink if beer could drink beer.”

The ExxonMobil Lecture Series launched in 2003 to promote advertising, media and corporate ethics. ExxonMobil has endowed the lecture series through a grant to SMU’s Temerlin Advertising Institute. The grant supports SMU’s goal of expanding its emphasis on ethics not only in its diverse communications programs but in events offered to the public.

For more information, contact the Temerlin Advertising Institute at 214-768-1878.

Stephanie Langin-Hooper, assistant professor of art history and Karl Kilinski II Endowed Chair of Hellenic Visual Culture in Meadows School of the Arts, received the 2016-17 Golden Mustang Faculty Award. The Golden Mustang honors junior faculty members who sustain high achievement as both teachers and scholars and supports teaching and curriculum development on the part of younger faculty members.

James Hart, professor of practice and interim chair of arts management and arts entrepreneurship in Meadows School of the Arts, received the Provost’s Teaching Recognition Award. The award honors full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members who demonstrate a commitment to excellence and a consummate dedication to teaching and learning.

Looking for last-minute gifts? Cherri Gann of SMU News compiles an annual list featuring books published in 2017 by the SMU community – including faculty, staff, alumni, libraries and museum.

This collection always has something for everyone, whether their reading preferences are light or serious, ranging from nonfiction to novels and from scholarly to children’s titles. Some selections are available at the SMU Bookstore, and most are available via online booksellers.

Twenty-five SMU faculty members have received 2018-19 Sam Taylor Fellowships from the Sam Taylor Fellowship Fund of the Division of Higher Education, United Methodist General Board of Higher Education and Ministry.

The Fellowships, funded by income from a portion of Taylor’s estate, award up to $2,000 for full-time faculty members at United Methodist-related colleges and universities in Texas. Any full-time faculty member is eligible to apply for the Fellowships, which support research, “advancing the intellectual, social or religious life of Texas and the nation.”

Applications are evaluated on the significance of the project, clarity of the proposal, professional development of the applicant, value of the project to the community or nation and the project’s sensitivity to value questions confronting higher education and society.

Three contemporary works, including newly created pieces by Complexions Ballet co-founders Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson and by Associate Professor Christopher Dolder, are highlights of the Meadows School of the Arts’ Fall Dance Concert. The show runs Nov. 8-12, 2017 in the Bob Hope Theatre, Owen Arts Center.

The program will open with Dolder’s new version of Bolero, set to a London Symphony recording of Ravel’s famous work. An interactive set featuring a circular stage space, curving ramps and central spire provide the physical backdrop for dancers representing an array of societal archetypes perennially caught in the cycles of life and culture. Dolder, a former soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company, has previously expressed a fascination for architectural design in productions of His Handle (2014), Metropolis (2015) and a collaboration with Canadian wood sculptor Erik More in The Orca Project (2016).

Ascension is a new piece created by Visiting Artists-in-Residence Richardson and Rhoden, featuring a blend of ballet and contemporary dance expressed in sculptural choreography. Complexions Ballet has received numerous honors, including The New York Times Critics’ Choice Award, and has performed at Lincoln Center and The Joyce Theater in New York, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and most recently at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as part of “Ballet Across America.” Celebrated for his choreography and wide-ranging collaborations with well-known dance artists, Rhoden has created over 80 ballets for Complexions and for numerous other major companies. Richardson is a Tony-nominated actor and the first black American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre.

Concluding the program is Moncell Durden’s Drop Me Off in Harlem, a tribute to the music and dance of the 1930s. Premiered earlier this year, it uses vernacular jazz movement to recount the adventures of three ladies from Pennsylvania who travel to New York City to dance at the famous Savoy Ballroom and watch the battle of the bands between Benny Goodman and Chick Webb. The audience follows Norma, Mabel and Dawn as they navigate the spirited streets, subways and ballrooms of New York and Harlem nightlife. Durden is a choreographer, historian, dance educator and current faculty member at the University of Southern California, where he teaches jazz, hip-hop and improvisation.

Fall Dance Concert performance times are 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $14 for adults, $11 for seniors and $8 for students, SMU faculty and staff.